Related articles

Former business secretary Vince Cable, who worked alongside Mrs May until 2015, said she should act to stop overseas conglomerates trying to cash in on the post-Brexit fall in the pound.

“This is an obvious case of a company being undervalued because of sterling’s devaluation since the referendum,” he said.

GETTY

Unilever office building

“Unilever is a very good company. There’s no question of under-performance or needing new management. The question is, what is the Government going to do? This is a very big test of her credibility.”

This is clearly an important potential deal

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy

Former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna said: “Sterling’s slump has left us in greater danger of losing control of some of Britain’s best and biggest companies to distant multi-national ownership.”

Unilever employs 7,500 in the UK and estimates its products are in 98 per cent of the country’s households.

Pressure was last night mounting on Theresa May to make her opposition clear

When Mrs May spoke about Kraft last year, she said takeovers should be judged on whether they benefited staff and customers, as well as investors, saying: “Transient shareholders, who are mostly companies investing other people’s money, are not the only people with an interest when firms are sold or close.”

A spokesman for the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy said: “This is clearly an important potential deal for a major company in the UK and its workforce. We will continue to monitor the situation closely.”